Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1887-09-23
TWELVE YEARS AT CHATTANOOGA.
What Has Been Accomplished on the Bloody
Battlefield

Chattanooga is twelve years old, says a
| letter to the st. Louis Globe Democrat
| True the name of Ross Landing on the
| Tennessee, was dropped for Chattanooga
in 1887 but in the fifty years since that
| beginning there have been three or four
re-generations. The war swept away all
that Chattanooga had accumulated up to
1860, and transforme the city and its
environs iuto q great fort. The same
advantages of location which are now
making it great industrial center gave
it Importance as military standpoint.
| Here is the natural crossing of the noun
tains and of the river from north to
sodth. The strategy of war claimed
Chattapooga's site and wiped her out as
a city in the '60s. But the strategy of
peace is now making her greater than
| she ever dreamed of being.
In 1866 there were twenty thousand
people here living on tho government
and on the army. When the troops were
finally mustered out,-a negro brigade
being disbanded here that year-the pop
ulation fell off to perhaps $500 genuine
| citizens, and what a pitiabie con dition
| they were in! There were no manufac.
! turers. There was not a store. There
| was not even farms to be titled III the
| suburbs. Block houses, redoubts, earth
| curtains, and trenches were everywhere.
| Chattanooga started with worse than
| nothing, for there were tons of earth to
| be removed before the streets could be
made passabIe. In and about the city
were 1919, pieces of artillery when the
| labor of dismantling the works began.
| Col. j. L. MCGOWAN, who superintended
the removal of the cannon, says: they
ranged from jack ass howitzers to an
eight gun battery of 100 FOUNDER Parrot
on naval carriages. The 100 Founders
were stationed on Cameron's hill, in a
| fort which now does duty as a reservoir
for the city. This, however, is about the
emily permanent advantage which Chat
| anooga derived from the war. She got
| reservoir without much digging.
The picture which COL McGowan
draws of the city as toe army left it is
only pleasant to look upon by way OF
comparison with what can be seen to-
| day. In April 1866, he says there was not
store room Of any size fit to put stock
of goods in-not one. The great hulk
ing ware houses built by the quarter
masters and commissaries were bought
of the government, divided into two
rooms, and the walls covered with old
| tent cloth on which wall paper was pasted
These served for stores, and the rooms
in the rear similarly reconstructed were
the offices of professional men. Picture
? the town d sprawling village of board
shanties, built along lands destitute OF
any walk or roadway save the red earth,
without a respectible structure in it,
without sch ools and almost without
churches; without money or credit, and
surrounded by country laid literally
bare, left utterly poor.
To day there is 101 business structures
in process of construction. At the cor
ner of Eight and Market streets a site
recently chrnged hands at $4,000 aud
the walls of a building to cost 100000
are rising.
About all of this wonderful transfor-
nation worth mentioning hiss takep
place since 1876. For the first decade
after the war Chattanooga struggled
hard to get ou her feet and without sue
cess. Small pox left in the deserted
cBmps and barracks by the army, scat
tered its seeds through the city and
swept off the population. Then came a
disastrous food dowu the Tennessee and
washed away the just arising industries.
In 1870, the Alabama and Chattanooga
railroad which had its headq quarters here
and with which all branches of trade were
more or less Intimately connected went
ander slmost bankrupting the little city.
| The panic of 1873 almost completed the
wrek. So it was not until 1875 and 1876
that Chattanooga started on the career
of prosperity which has continued with
out a brerk.
On the Western and Atlantic train yes
| terday, minister from Atlanta and
young lawyer from Dalton sat down to-
| gether.
"John," said the minister, II hear you
are going to leave Dalton. Is that SOY"
YES" said the lawyer. I'm going to
move to Chattanooga. I've been up there
to day making arrangements"
Pm sorry to hear that" said the mini
sier. "Isn't Dalton good enough for
your"
"Thsre isn't place in Georgia where
the society is BETTER" replied the lawyer
earnestly.
The moral tone is high, and 1 don't
believe the bar ranks higher anywhere in
the state. But what is there there for q
young man! He may make living but
he will gradually be ruined by inertness
but at Chattanooga a man must be mov-
ing all the time.